Salvador Military and Economic Reprograming, 1984 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1883 Excerpt: ...strategy? Secretary Shultz. I think so. MILITARY SITUATION IN EL SALVADOR Senator Hatfield. Mr. Secretary, Ambassador Hinton told the American Chamber of Commerce in San Salvador in October--in fact, October 29, 1982, to be precise--and I quote, "that El Salvador's army is slowly but surely winning the war." At that point the Salvadoran army had suffered over 4,000 casualties and the civilian population had experienced somewhere between 3,500 and 8,000 politically-motivated deaths in a little over 1 year. Now, 5 months later, we get an assessment that we are possibly witnessing the danger of El Salvador losing the war--that is, the established government--unless the U.S. Government provides greatly increased amounts of military aid. Could you give us briefly the conditions that have created this change of assessment between the time when Ambassador Hinton's cautiously optimistic statement was made and now, because a while ago you were indicating this aid is going to give us hope of improving the political-economic-social problems down there? I am just wondering, considering this reversal from 5 months ago until today, how do we expect this to be turned around by this particular package? Secretary Shultz. No doubt there are many causes of the fluctuations of fortunes. My belief is that a major one is a very sharp vreduction in the annual rate of military aid coming from the United States, from an annual rate of around $60 million to an annual rate of around $25 million. When you do that to an armed force it is bound to have adverse consequences, particularly when the other side gets better organized and built up. Senator Hatfield. Considering what was already in the pipeline, do you attribute this reversal from Ambassador Hinton's assessment to you...